Keepemwet Fishing—An emerging social brand for disseminating best practices for catch-and-release in recreational fisheries

Publication

Publication

There is a growing body of catch-and-release (C&R) science showing that adjusting the way fish are caught, handled, and released can reduce impacts on individuals and populations. However, a major caveat is that C&R will be a more effective conservation tool if best practice guidelines stemming from the science are understood, embraced, and adopted by recreational anglers. In recognition of this, Keepemwet Fishing (KWF) has emerged as a nonpartisan movement to provide simple, clear, and accurate C&R guidelines that transcend species and subcultures within the recreational angling community. The foundations of the KWF movement are science-based best practices, clear translations of the science, and a diverse and growing set of stakeholder groups that are sharing the Keepemwet sentiment via social media and other communication channels. We highlight the power of this grassroots movement, as well as potential hurdles that KWF and other social brands will need to overcome to broaden their effectiveness in making C&R guidelines more accessible and appealing to the public. Given the apparent increase in bottom-up attempts to disseminate best practices to anglers, the lessons learned from the KWF movement have the potential to be of great benefit to other groups engaged in angler outreach related to best practices and broader recreational fisheries conservation.